You may be wondering why your computer is no longer running as fast as it did when you first bought it. Here are a few reasons why this can happen.

1. Over time we install additional programs, games, and printers which are often installed and replaced. Each time Windows starts, some of these programs run in the background slowing down your computer. You may have noticed some of these as icons in your computer's system tray, located in the bottom right corner of your screen.

2. Your main hard drive used by Windows may be too full of data to function efficiently. There should be at least 300MB-500MBs of free space to allow for disk file chores. Try carefully uninstalling unused programs on the C: drive to make space.

3 Your computer could have a fragmented hard drive. This results from programs being loaded and deleted. Run the Window's hard drive defragmenter (Defrag) once a month.

4. Our demand on computers grows over time, subtle as it might be; we demand more than we did couple of years ago. We manipulate more pictures, more videos, play more games, and multitask, not to mention constant social networking, (Facebook, Twitter etc.) You may not have enough free system memory to run your software efficiently. It's probably time to upgrade your memory. Systems running Windows 7 should have 2-4 GB of system memory at a minimum. Note - don't confuse system memory with hard disk space.

5. Sometimes we inadvertently install wrong or conflicting Windows device drivers. An example would be you might actually have two entirely different video drivers on your system and Windows could actually be alternately using both of them.

6. As each new Windows program is installed and uninstalled, it leaves behind parts of itself that can slow down or crash your computer. These are mostly .dlls and other shared files.

It's also very possible when uninstalling a program that needed Windows system files can be deleted. When your computer asks if you want to uninstall shared files it's usually safest to say no -- even if your uninstall program claims the files are not being used.

7. Your computer could be full of adware, spyware, viruses, or Trojans. These are all nasty programs that will not only slow down your computer; they will literally take over the functioning of your computer so they can run their programs. You definitely don't want any of this junk on your computer. To get rid of these parasite programs, and to prevent them from installing in the first place, you need an up-to-date firewall, anti-virus, and spyware removal programs.

These are three separate software programs that must be running at all times except for when you are not plugged into the Internet. It is very important that these programs continuously update themselves or they will become out-dated and will no longer be useful.